After their parents die in a fire at the family mansion, Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire are left in the care of Count Olaf, a sinister distant relative who wants his hands on the Baudelaire family fortune, which the children will inherit when Violet turns 18. Throughout the first few books in the series, the children are sent from one caretaker to another, each one more eccentric and troubled than the last. Count Olaf is following them in a series of Paper Thin Disguises that only the children immediately see through. Eventually, the children must strike out on their own to discover their family's dark secret - their parents' connection to a mysterious organization. And all the while, bizarre and improbable disasters strike the children and everyone around them for no discernible reason.

The series has a movie and a video game based off of said movie. Lemony Snicket narrates throughout, providing commentary, anecdotes, and advice - usually against reading any more of his history of the Baudelaire orphans. While the movie never moved past one installment (based on the first three books), Netflixobtained the film rights and adapted the books into a live-action series, which premiered on Friday the 13th of January 2017, with Barry Sonnenfeld and Handler himself as showrunners; Patrick Warburton portrays Lemony Snicket, and Neil Patrick Harris plays Count Olaf.

For a guide to the copious amounts of literary/historical allusions present in the books, see here

A four-part prequel series called All the Wrong Questions, concerning a young Lemony Snicket working for VFD, was later released.

This series provides examples of:

A Boy, a Girl, and a Baby Family: Violet and Klaus, 14/15 and 12/13 respectively, fit the bill for the two older siblings. Although Sunny is no longer referred to as a baby from Book the Tenth onward, she is undeniably the age-distant baby of the trio.

Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder: Beatrice marries Mr. Baudelaire after she believes that her former fiance Lemony is dead, though she had broken up with him beforehand. She would've named Violet after him if Violet had been born a boy. Lemony never begrudged her for that.

Absurd Phobia: Aunt Josephine from The Wide Window suffers from phobias of everything — tripping over the door mat, getting electrocuted by using a telephone, and finally, realtors. In The Film of the Book, her fears of them prove amusingly rational for just one evening, when a hurricane strikes her house and causes all her appliances to malfunction in exactly the way she claimed they would. In both the book and the film, it's implied to be a trauma-related disorder stemming from the death of her husband. In later books, her fear of realtors is implied to be justified due to VFD-related stuff.

Adaptational Attractiveness While their appearance outside of illustrations are never really detailed in the books, besides a throwaway line about "pleasant facial features" in the first paragraph of the first chapter, the movie makes them appear much more "pretty" (excepting Violet, who was described as being pretty in the books), making Klaus look much older than he probably should, and making him no longer need glasses, which would be a vital plot point in the fourth book.

Adaptation Dye-Job: The Baudelaires were originally had black hair and brown eyes, but the movie changed their hair color to a reddish brown.

Adults Are Useless: Are they ever! By the 8th book, the three principles (by now ages fifteen, thirteen, and not-quite-two) take care of themselves, because every adult they've met is either viciously holding onto the Idiot Ball or is evil. On rare occasions they encounter a decent, intelligent, competent adult — who promptly winds up dead. That, or being dosed with a heavy amount of Idiot Ball themselves. Justice Strauss being an example; She was a very good-natured and kind woman who genuinely cared for the children, yet did not believe the children until Olaf staged his "play" and revealed that Strauss had married himself and Violet, legally owning her fortune in the process.

And some of the decent, competent adults wind up cowed into uselessness by their more forceful (evil, greedy, etc) companions, such as Charles and Sir. Or they simply don't listen to the children's "outlandish stories".

A recurring example of this trope is Arthur Poe. This fat sod continually believes that the children will be safe wherever they're ending up despite the fact that they were very, VERY, quickly found by Olaf.

To put it very simply: If there's an adult in this series, they're either completely idiodic or a part of VFD, for good or evil.

Adult Fear: Your parents dying in a freak fire that also destroys your homes and your treasures. Then you get shipped to one guardian after another, while a murderer picks off the adults one by one in hopes of stealing your fortune.

Adventure Towns: Most book are in a different town (or island or mountain or ...). The sixth and twelfth books are set in the same nameless city in which the series began, though.

Aesop Amnesia: Arthur Poe repeatedly forgets about believing the children when they come to him. So much that when they encounter him at the end of The Grim Grotto that Violet politely refuses to go with him in favor of going to the taxi with Kit Snicket.

Affectionate Parody: Handler started off trying to write the sort of gothic, bloodthirsty children's stories he wanted to read when he was a child, and most of the books take off one genre or another, occasionally straying into Deconstruction territory)

Handler (At a Book Reading at Washington College): "Is it so wrong that I wanted to read books where terrible things happened to small children over and over?"

Alas, Poor Villain: After getting harpooned by Ishmael, Olaf realizes that all of his plans have been foiled, he has nothing left to live for, having lost everyone close to him, and he has no chance of obtaining the Baudelaire fortune. After learning that Kit has gone into labor, he does what Violet labels the single good deed in his life by carrying her to an area where childbirth will be easier. Although he has eaten an apple that cures him of the Medusoid Mycelium that was released when he was harpooned, he succumbs to his harpoon wound, but not before reciting the closing stanza of a poem and giving out one final "HA!"

Alliterative Name: The Odd Name Out in both sets of triplets: Quigley Quagmire and Dewey Denouement. Beatrice and Bertrand Baudelaire. Actually, both Beatrice Baudelaires. The titles of the first twelve books are alliterative, as well as many, many locations mentioned throughout the books (Lousy Lane, Lake Lachrymose, Finite Forest, Heimlich Hospital, etc.).

Alpha Bitch: Carmelita Spats, a genuinely terrible little girl that the orphans first encounter in The Austere Academy. Count Olaf and Esme Squalor hit it off with her so well they decide to adopt her, though, Olaf later leaves her to die in the fire.

Leo Marks was a cryptographer during World War II who used poetry to convey messages, and later became a writer for the film and stage.

Ambiguous Gender: The Person of Indeterminate Gender, a.k.a. the enormous person who looked like neither a man or a woman. In the movie the character isn't morbidly obese, but just very androgynous looking, either looking like a very feminine man, or a very manly woman.

Ambiguously Gay: Charles and Sir are business partners at the Lucky Smells Lumber Mill, and "partner" is used very insistently to describe them, even when it makes the sentence structure awkward. They share a room when they travel together to the Hotel Denoument, share a relaxing sauna together there, and when the hotel is set on fire, they are holding hands as they attempt to escape. Also in The Beatrice Letters, one of Lemony's letters to Beatrice says he'll love her "until C. realizes S. is not worthy of his love"

Ambiguously Jewish: The author has noted that his characters are Jewish by default, and he unconsciously inserts Jewish themes and ideas into his books. In the final book, the Baudelaires mention that it is their family's tradition to name babies after deceased relatives. This is a Jewish tradition. note (Jews aren't supposed to name babies after still living relatives, as this is considered tantamount to putting a death sentence on the older party. This is an an Ashkenazi custom and may not apply to other groups of Jews.)

In The Slippery Slope, Verbal Fridge Dialogue numbers Sunday as the first day of the week, rather than Monday. In Judeo-Christian tradition, Sunday is the day following the Sabbath and the first day of the new week.

Of course, Sunday is also the first day of the new week in general in America, as indicated on every calendar. So that's not so much an indication that they're Jewish so much as they're not European.

Anachronism Stew: The film, deliberately. The characters, environments, and vehicles seem to be early 20th century, but fax machines and reel-to-reel car tape decks and car phones seem to be 80s, and Olaf mentions a cell phone in a deleted scene. Given that Poe actually has to feel himself to check, one assumes that giant 80s-style cell phones aren't common at the time.

The books keep the time period as vague as possible, easily taking place any time in the 20th century, and the only real definite is that it takes place in the past but whether it's a hundred years ago or last month, it's never certain.

What with the computer in "The Austere Academy" being small and able to display a picture and may or may not be able to fake photographs, it definitely takes place sometime after the 50s, or at least at a point when computers did not fill a room.

Handler has way too much fun with this. At one point, a train station is mentioned to have three shops - one is a computer repair shop. Another is a blacksmith shop. Have fun figuring out what time period those two establishments could coexist in.

In the fourth book, Klaus mentions during his speech about Hypnotism, that there was a case during the 1910's. The obvious implication being that the series takes however many years afterwards, making this reference, the only thing that we have to tie down the specific time

It should be noted, though, that the text never makes explicit references to the Baudelaire children wearing Victorian clothing — even though they are often illustrated as wearing such.

And Now You Must Marry Me: Olaf tries to force Violet to marry him in Book the First, despite being her legal guardian. The creepiness of this is actually played up, culminating in the hilarious and horrifying line "You may not be my wife, but you are still my daughter, and—"

Anti-Hero: Arguably the Baudelaires themselves in later books, which is somewhat justified when every adult has failed them or died, they get framed for murder, and they can only rely on themselves.

Anti-Love Song: Several of The Gothic Archies' accompanying songs on the audiobooks and The Tragic Treasury, including Smile!, Shipwrecked and Walking My Gargoyle.

Anti-Villain: Among actual antagonists, Fernald/The Hook-Handed Man seems to fall into this category as the series goes on.

Anyone Can Die: Anyone who takes time to care for the orphans is likely to meet a horrible fate. Also, anyone who takes time to persecute the orphans. The series kicks off with the deaths of their parents in a fire. Eventually it adds up to: Kit Snicket, Aunt Josephine, Uncle Monty, and possibly everybody else.

Every book even has thirteen chapters. Averted in the final installment, however, thanks to the additional "Chapter Fourteen" which is treated as a separate book despite consisting of a single chapter. This also causes the series as a whole to avert the arc number; until then, it would have had 169 (13 times 13) chapters, but it now has one chapter more than that.

The first season of the TV adaptation was released on January 13th 2017, a Friday, 13 years after the 2004 film.

Rather annoyingly averted with Season 2, which is set to come out on 30 March 2018, even though 13 April will be another Friday.

Asshole Victim: It is unknown how many survived the fire at Hotel Denoumet. Considering everything they put the siblings through, a certain number of characters (i.e. Sir, Nero, Carmelita Spats) may very well have earned it.

Bilingual Bonus: some of Sunny's comments, such as her arigato in the Slippery Slope, or her saying Aubergine to mean that she is making a plot with this eggplant. Others are a mishmash of English ("Kicbucit?" for "Is he dead?") and a couple are plain old Hebrew ("Yomhuledet!" which is translated as "Surprise" but means "birthday" and "Yomhashoah" which is translated as "Never again" but means "Holocaust Memorial Day"). The children also make pasta Puttanesca, an Italian dish translating as "whore's sauce." But Klaus explains to Violet that it means "Very few ingredients".

Billed Above the Title: The movie adaptation's advertising often showed Jim Carrey's name and characters way above the central characters of the series.

Violet goes through this when they return to the abandoned submarine and find some balloons, and Sunny is sick from the Mycelia mushroom.

Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Esme Squalor, who after a successful career as a financial advisor starts an affair with Olaf while married to Jerome and conspires with him to steal the Baudelaires' fortune as well as that of the Quagmires'. In subsequent books she helps frame the Baudelaires for murder, forcibly behead Violet while the latter is unconscious, feed people to lions, kidnap more children and whip them into rowing a submarine. It's very cathartic when it's implied Olaf leaves her to die in the fire.

Due to Executive Meddling, the ending of the movie, that closes the story in an ambiguous but optimistic way: "...the Baudelaires were very fortunate indeed". The third book, the last book the movie covers, also ends with this line.

The Beatrice Letters reveals that the Baudelaire siblings and their charge Beatrice survived to adulthood, with Beatrice writing to her uncle Lemony. This means that they survive everything Olaf and the world has put them through, and have managed to reenter society.

Also notable, The Beatrice Letters implies that at least one of the non-malevolent adults from the series, Charles, is still alive after the Hotel Denouement fire. He's also never likely to realize that Sir is undeserving of his love.

Bizarrchitecture: Doctor Orwell's eye-shaped building, the "thumb" shaped buildings at Prufrock Prep and to a certain extent, the Eye decor of Olaf's house. Aunt Josephine's house clinging to the edge of a cliff counts as well, though THAT one didn't last long.....

Boarding School of Horrors: It's a safe bet that a boarding school with the motto Memento Mori (which is Latin for "Remember you will die") is not going to be a pleasant one. And Prufrock Preparatory School in Book the Fifth is indeed not.

Body Motifs: The eye that first appears in Count Olaf's ankle tattoo, and later in many other places.

One chapter taught kids a useful trick when eating foods you don't like to spread the food around on the plate so as to make it appear like there's less left.

Also the trick the kids use in the elevator that their dad taught them, where they press every single button in order to cause a large delay.

In book two, Violet does a trick where she eavesdrops on a conversation, and places her ribbon on the floor in case she gets caught so that she can claim to have just been picking up her ribbon by the door.

Breaking Speech: Or rather, Gloat, in the movie. Olaf reveals to the audience that he has just legally married Violet and played everyone for a sap. When Mr. Poe demands that the Chief of Police arrest him, Olaf calls Poe and everyone out on how the kids had repeatedly tried to warn the adults and asked for help, but they wouldn't listen to them. "No one ever listens to children".

Briar Patching: The books themselves. Each one's back cover and narration will frequently tell the reader that they'd really be better off reading something, anything else.

Brick Joke: The phrase "red herring" is introduced in The Ersatz Elevator. That is not funny on its own - however, it is still crucial to a Stealth Joke pulled off in The Hostile Hospital. All the names on the patient list are anagrams - one of them, when rearranged, becomes the phrase "red herring."

The Bus Came Back: Phil in The Grim Grotto. Tons of examples in The Penultimate Peril, including Mr. Poe, Jerome, Justice Strauss, the teachers from Prufrock Prep School, residents of the Village of Fowl Devotees, Hal (running an Indian restaurant), Carmelita Spats, Sir, Charles, and Bruce (a minor character from The Reptile Room).

Every single named character ever was left behind at the Hotel Denouement, in The Penultimate Peril. The hotel is set on fire by the end (while nearly everyone is blindfolded, and it's up in the air as to how many of them, if any at all, escape.

Busman's Holiday: Lampshaded — and defined, in trademark Snicket style — in The Penultimate Peril, in which Sir, the lumbermill boss, has come to a hotel to do some business at a cocktail party and attends a sauna so he can enjoy the smell of hot wood.

Cassandra Truth: Every time the children see through Olaf's disguises, nobody believes them in time except in The End.

Cerebus Retcon: As the series develops, it turns out that many of the characters' motivations and activities were tied up with the fraught history of a secret fire-fighting organization.

Cerebus Syndrome: The series starts off doing this backwards, moving from darkness and Grimm-style misery (First book) into comedy and wackiness, but then slides back into darkness again in the later books. The end of book five is when things really start to get dark.

Chekhov's Boomerang: In The Ersatz Elevator Violet attempts to use fire tongs for several different things, including welding and noisemakers. They only are effective for their final use, however.

Chekhov's Gun: Reading The Bad Beginning the first time, a reader might be confused as to why Snicket is so specific in which hand Violet uses to hold her spoon, or throw the grappling hook. Snicket makes sure the reader knows Violet is right-handed. At the end, Violet foils Olaf's plot by signing her name with her left hand, thus not fulfilling the marriage requirement that a bride sign her name "in her own hand" (In the movie, though, Count Olaf persuades her to use her right hand.) Also, in book the eleventh, Sunny finds some wasabi in the underwater room. This turns out to be vital in curing Sunny from a near-death infection.

Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: The wart faced man from Olaf's troupe disappears after the 1st book and is never mentioned again. Also didn't appear in the movie that was made 5 years later.

He may be Lemony as Lemony mentions that he received "wart removal cream" for a birthday once.

Or, in the first song in the Tragic Treasury, when listing Olaf's henchpeople the song says "and one long-nosed bald man with warts". So it's possible that the wart-faced man and the bald-headed man have been retroactively combined into one.

Cinderella Circumstances: The first book, in which the Baudelaire siblings live with the bossy and horrible Count Olaf who treats them like servants. In the tenth book, "The Slippery Slope", Sunny resides with Count Olaf and his henchmen after being captured by them. She ends up becoming a servant for the whole group, including cooking meals in freezing temperatures, cleaning, and sleeping in a casserole dish and having to clear a car floor of potato chipsby blowing them out. The narrator even references Cinderella.

City with No Name: Although many fictional place names are mentioned, the main city where the Baudelaires used to live is never named. (The film identifies it as Boston, but this never occurs in the books).

Clark Kenting: Numerous characters at various points, with the minor characters being better at it than the main ones.

Coattail-Riding Relative: Count Olaf, a distant relative, spends most of the series trying to get the Baudelaire orphans' inheritance. In the first book, he tries to marry Violet to do this.

Comic-Book Time: A possible/subtle example. Duncan and Isadora say they spent three semesters at the academy before the Baudelaires arrive. "The Slippery Slope" later establishes the Quagmire fire as happening after "The Reptile Room". Excluding the last Chapter, Violet and Klaus only have one birthday each throughout the series.

Convection Schmonvection: Well, technically "Radiation Schmadiation." In the film of the book, Klaus uses Olaf's sunlight-refracting weapon to incinerate the wedding contract. The instant the sunlight hits the paper, it catches on fire. That means the thing was heated to about 400 degrees Farenheit just like that. Never mind the fact that Klaus perfectly lined up the device to hit such a small target, how come Olaf's hand didn't get singed? Or, you know, the stage didn't catch fire? There should at least have been smoke, considering how easily the paper went up.

Covers Always Lie: The twelfth book features several sinister-looking figures whom fans thought would be important — or even specific characters from previous books — but no corresponding characters appear in the text. Inverted by the British edition of the sixth book, on which the cover gives away the main plot twist.

Couch Gag: Every book begins with an illustration of the baudelaires and the current disguise of Count Olaf. However, eventually, Olaf's disguise stops changing, and instead The Baudelaires start having changes done to their illustration (Carnival freaks, diving helmets, and Klaus&Violet wearing snow scout masks)

The Hostile Hospital features only a radio for Olaf, since his current "disguise" is never actually shown to the reader, he only speaks through intercoms.

Crapsack World: Invoked. The Baudelaires' happy, privileged childhoods quickly turn into a journey into the worst places imaginable. Over the course of the series, it's revealed that things are only going From Bad to Worse.

Death by Childbirth: Subverted. Kit Snicket dies not as a result of childbirth, but because of the Medusoid Mycelium, the cure for which she refuses to consume because of its effects on unborn children.

Deception Noncompliance: In the third book, Aunt Josephine is forced by Count Olaf to pretend to commit suicide and turn over custody of the kids to "Captain Sham" (who is Olaf in disguise). She forges a suicide note, but deliberately fills it with misspellings so the kids pick up on the secret code she wrote for them, since they know their aunt is utterly pedantic about proper spelling. But she was hoping that they would come to live with her in the cave with groceries, not stand up to "Captain Sham".

Deconstruction: The series actually deconstructs itself at one point: in The End, Count Olaf disguises himself to try and fool the Baudelaires' new guardians, following the Strictly Formula the series followed between books two and seven. However, this time, the plan does not work; the islanders instantly point out just how bad his Paper-Thin Disguise is and how bad Olaf is at acting the part.

Department of Redundancy Department: Frequently used for humour in the narration throughout the series, mostly as part of the "defining words" and "translate Sunny's speech" gags:

But even so, the three children were eager to leave the Anxious Clown, and not just because the garish restaurant - the word "garish" here means "filled with balloons, neon lights, and obnoxious waiters" - was filled with balloons, neon lights, and obnoxious waiters.

In the ninth book, one chapter starts out with a description of deja vu. The second page of the chapter is almost exactly the same as the first page (including the picture and the chapter heading). Several chapters later, the exact same passage describing deja vu is repeated again.

In The Grim Grotto, Lemony Snicket attempts to put the reader to sleep by giving a very repetitive description of evaporation.

He found himself reading the same sentence over and over. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over.

Devil in Plain Sight: Count Olaf is almost always one of these, and no one believes the Baudelaires until they finally prove that his latest persona is a criminal. Averted with Olaf's assistants, who are never detected by the Baudelaires.

It isn't Aunt Josephine's numerous, crippling, irrational phobias that qualify her for this title, but rather the way she instantly and shamelessly promises not to reveal Olaf's disguise and offers for him to take the children when she is threatened. The narrator and the Beaudelaires agree that she was a horrible guardian.

Also off-screen in The Vile Village the relatives and foster parents that refuse to take in the Baudelaires due to previous guardians getting murdered, which could be avoided if sensible people simply listened to the children.

Distant Finale: Seven-thirteenths of The Beatrice Letters. Ostensibly they're just supplementary reading, but there's no such thing as "optional," is there?

Don't Eat and Swim: Aunt Josephine tells the Baudelaires that they must wait one hour after eating before swimming in Lake Lachrymose. Klaus initially assumes it's because of cramps, but Josephine informs him that it's actually because of the lake's carnivorous leeches. Later on she attracts the leaches to their stolen boat by concealing that she had eaten a banana before boarding.

Dressing as the Enemy: The Baudelaires unintentionally do this in The Hostile Hospital when they disguise themselves as doctors and are mistaken by Olaf's associates for the two powder-faced women who are also disguised as doctors. Technically this trope is parodied, because despite them having ridiculously transparent disguises, Olaf's associates just assume he knows how to disguise himself as someone shorter.

Then the inversion is subverted, when the Lemony Narrator later directly tells the reader this is not always the case.

Elective Broken Language: Both Olaf in his "Gunther" disguise ("The Erzatz Elevator") and Madame Lulu/Olivia Caliban in "Carnivorous Carnival" speak very peculiar English as a part of their Fauxreigner image. Downplayed with Olaf (since he does it only as a part of one particular disguise), and played straight with Lulu who has been doing it for a large part of her life (Lulu's language is actually more idiosyncratic than Olaf's: for instance, she also refers to herself in the third person).

Subverted at one point. Fernald tries to help the Baudelaires and his sister Fiona escape, with the proviso that they escape with him, but then he has to pretend that Fiona is performing a Face–Heel Turn when the siblings (but not the Baudelaires) get caught during Carmelita's performance.

The Baudelaires help Count Olaf break into the laundry room, start a fire as a signal, and escape from the burning Hotel Denouement because they know no one will find the sugar bowl anyway, other VFD members will know "the last safe place is no longer safe." Also, while Olaf may have them, he doesn't have the fortunate while they're all wanted fugitives and in the middle of the ocean

Eskimos Aren't Real: When Count Olaf meets Dewey Denouement in Book the Twelfth, he is surprised he isn't just a legendary figure like unicorns or Giuseppe Verdi. The Baudelaires remind him that Giuseppe Verdi is a real person.

Every Episode Ending: Every book ends with exactly the same formula: There's a full-page picture containing a clue to the plot of the next book; comical bios for the author and illustrator, with an obscured picture of the former and a themed illustration of the latter; and a letter from Lemony Snicket to his editor explaining where to pick up the manuscript for the next book, along with several items related to it.

Inverted in the end of The End, where the photograph is an unobstructed portrait of the illustrator Dressed as Lemony Snicket (and a bewildered expression on his face), while the illustration apparently depicts the author, and only his eyes are obscured (by cucumber slices). The pattern is then restored at the end of Chapter 14, complete with a Gilligan Cut in the illustrator's bio.

Everyone Has Standards: The villagers of V.F.D. are all too willing to burn rule breakers at the stake, but they start to become uneasy when the police (actually Olaf and Esme) begin breaking the rules in order to catch rule-breakers.

Everyone Went to School Together: Quite a few characters went to school together, but this is somewhat justified by the fact that they were all members of a secret organization and this was their training; also, several of these characters are The Ghost.

Subverted with the Last Chance General Store in Book the Eighth. It does sell a very wide selection of items, and so arguably could very well apply in-universe. However, as usual the manager is of little help to the Baudelaires.

Family-Unfriendly Violence: Daniel Handler has noted that the series was inspired by and in a sense meant to be a modern version of classic fairy tales, which are rarely as pleasant as their Bowdlerized Victorian equivalents. In keeping with this fine tradition, the series contains violence that, while not graphically described, is frequently quite serious. Legs are crushed by logs, babies are threatened with death or maiming, people are shot with harpoon guns, and the effects of the Medusoid Mycelium, a fungal bioweapon sound like something more fitting for The Last of Us than a children's book series.

Fictional Document: Snicket's letters at the end of each book, leading his editor to the manuscript of the following book and several props borrowed from it; also, numerous diaries and newspapers are quoted within the narrative, while the supplementary books are each a full-blown Scrapbook Story.

Foregone Conclusion: The intros to many of the books tell you that the story will NOT have a happy ending, and Lemony Snicket will also casually reveal which characters will have bad things happen to them throughout the book.

Fortune Teller: Madame Lulu in The Carnivorous Carnival. Later on it turns out that she is a fake psychic, and the book deconstructs both tropes.

The Freakshow: The Carnivorous Carnival has the children traveling with one.

Fun with Foreign Languages: Based on guesswork about word frequency, Snicket translates "cul-de-sac" as "At the end of a dark hallway, the Baudelaire orphans found an assortment of mysterious circumstances."

Geographic Flexibility: The spatial as well as temporal milieu of the Series is best described as "everywhere and nowhere", as it's apparently far from most known continents, and the large city the Baudelaires lived in doesn't even have a name.

"People aren't either wicked or noble. They're like chef's salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict." Though when youconsider the source is Fernald...

Half-Identical Twins: The Quagmire triplets are "absolutely identical," so how the Baudelaires tell whether they're talking to male Duncan or female Isadora is a mystery — although Isadora is illustrated with subtly longer hair. But at least the two brothers Duncan and Quigley never share a scene. Jacques and Kit are an aversion, as the book does not mention any similarity. At all. If anything, there's more similarity between Jacques and Olaf.

Hands Off My Fluffy!: The Baudelaires are obviously distraught when a snake called the Incredibly Deadly Viper bites their sister, but Uncle Monty just laughs because the name is a misnomer.

Hanlon's Razor: The line between willful villainy and pure incompetence is rather thin, especially since some incompetent and stupid characters become pawns in what seems like a Gambit Roulette.

Heel–Face Door-Slam: Mr. Poe's sister, the editor of The Daily Punctilio, as noted in The Unauthorized Biography. She fired Lemony Snicket for trashing Esme's terrible acting in a play (and for an unstated reason that Lemony fails to print before he's caught in the newspaper's printing rooms), hired a shock-value journalist named Geraldine Julienne, and openly engages in telling falsehoods in print. After getting trapped in a basement, she sends a distress telegram to Mr. Poe; within it she confesses that she falsified tales in The Daily Punctilio. Unfortunately for her, Mr. Poe has been taking Geraldine Julienne's advice about not reading telegrams and sends them to said journalist without reading, along with the distress telegram that the Baudelaires sent him in The Hostile Hospital. It's implied that she dies in that basement with no one but Geraldine Julienne.

Hero of Another Story / Villain of Another Story: Everyone in the series, but especially the Quagmires (later joined by the Widdershins family) and the Snickets (including the narrator's descriptions of the circumstances under which he is writing the story).

He Who Fights Monsters: Discussed in Book the Tenth, where the Baudelaires wonder if they have crossed the line.

Hitler Ate Sugar: Played with, a few times. (Only a villainous person places his cup on the table without using a coaster or enjoys the works of Edgar Guest.)

Count Olaf dies of a wound he sustained from having his own harpoon gun fired at him by Ishmael.

Mr. Poe's sister dies off-screen trapped in a basement when one of the journalists she hired, Geraldine Julienne, gives advice about how telegrams are dangerous. This leads to the distress telegram that Mr. Poe's sister sends getting sent to Geraldine, courtesy of Mr. Poe believing the news.

The Adults Are Useless mentality of everyone the kids meet probably made most of them Too Dumb to Live when they refuse to believe the building they're in is on fire and refuse to remove their blindfolds. YMMV on whether the (potentially lethal) negligence displayed by characters who were otherwise good people made this Laser-Guided Karma, which the Baudelaires even lament in the text.

Hostage for MacGuffin: A Subverted Trope: in Book the Tenth, where for once it's proposed by the heroes, neither they nor the villain are capable of carrying out their side of the bargain.

Hypocrite: Fernald tries to explain himself to Fiona when they reunite after Olaf captures the former and the Baudelaires, but while he makes good points about how The Daily Punctilio is full of lies and both he and the Baudelaires are Not So Different in how they have set fires, there is no mention of how he's abetted Olaf in kidnapping children and murdering adults. Up to that point in the book the Baudelaires hadn't committed murder (or "accident" according to Sunny), and throughout the book they never kidnap anyone.

Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Alliterated "The <adjective> <noun>", e.g., The Miserable Mill, The Wide Window, for nearly all the books, the only exceptions being The Reptile Room and The End.

The Illuminati: Hinted at with Fiona Widdershins, who seems to prefer triangular eyeglasses.

Incoming Ham: Esmé Genevieve Gigi Squalor is the sixth most important financial adviser in the city, and she will be very sorry if you forget it.

Incurable Cough of Death: Subverted. Mr. Poe's cough is his defining character quirk (other than being woefully incompetent), and serves only to show what a weak and annoying person he is rather than mark him for death.

However, with the fire in the second to last book and the vague status on the minor characters, he may have died.

Improbable Infant Survival: Despite all the terrible things that happen in the books, no children are killed during the course of the series. In fact, even though one of the Quagmire triplets was thought to be killed in a fire before the Baudelaires met them, it turns out that he survived. However, several of the Baudelaires' friends who were about their age are taken by "The Great Unknown" in the last book. While the books make it clear that this is probably a very bad thing, it is never outright stated to be fatal.

There's also the case of Friday... She's under ten years of age and breathed the spores of the mushroom, so she had but a few hours left to live when we last saw her. It's never confirmed she took the antidote, and thanks to mob psychology, it's highly unlikely she did. It is later confirmed, by the Beatrice Letters, that Friday did survive due to the Viper's attempts to get an apple to her.

However the fate of Carmelita Spats remains ambiguous. She's last seen in the Hotel Denouement before it takes fire.

Ironic Nursery Tune: Book the Eighth's accompanying song, Smile! No One Cares How You Feel; Book the Twelfth's Things Are Not What They Appear feels like this as well. The Film of the Book plays music-box tunes and the saccharine "Littlest Elf" song during tragic scenes.

Also, The World Is A Very Scary Place. The lyrics could be threatening, to an extent, but the music is just so upbeat.

It Will Never Catch On: Real Life example: Daniel Handler thought the series was an awful idea, and when his editor said she liked it, he thought she was drunk.

I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Lemony never begrudged Beatrice for breaking off their engagement, thinking he was dead, and marrying another man, a Mr. Baudelaire. He's more worried about checking up on her children, making sure they're okay, and telling their story to the world.

Jerkass: Sir, Vice Principal Nero, the VFD council of elders to some extent, and Count Olaf when he's not being pure evil.

Joker Jury. A Subverted Trope, in that the Baudelaires actually killed someone, albeit accidentally, and it turns out two figures of unfathomable evil apparently run the official courts.

Just a Stupid Accent: Characters trying to be "foreign" use broken English with clumsy syntax (like "I am loving of the children") and frequent interjections of "Please", and apparently everyone falls for it.

After Olaf kills Uncle Monty, the adults reveal that Monty's collection of reptiles will be separated. Some will go to zoos, or to museums, and some will even be euthanized. The reptiles seem to cry along with the Baudelaires when each party says goodbye to the other.

The Village of Fowl Devotees treats the Baudelaires as little more than unpaid servants, and then as criminals when Olaf frames them for the murder of "Count Omar," actually Jacques, using flimsy evidence. Not to mention they like burning people at the stake.

Officer Luciano actually Esme Squalor while trying to shoot down Hector's balloon injures one of the village crows. The villagers notice this and turn on her and "Detective Dupin" for breaking the rules.

Kick the Morality Pet: By killing Jacques Snicket, Kit's brother, Olaf does this about six books before encountering Kit again, and she has remained up to speed. It's no surprise that she calls him a bad man while he's transporting her to a safe location.

Kick the Son of a Bitch: When Count Olaf violently pushes Carmelita Spats to the ground. Also when Ishmael locks Olaf in a cage.

Kill All Humans: While not particularly harmful, the insects called snow gnats sting humans just for the fun of it. Klaus does state, though, that they are mildly poisonous and a large enough number of stings could cause severe illness.

Kill 'em All: By the end of the series, practically every notable character has either died or else been abandoned by the narrative at a point when their survival is very much up in the air. Many secondary and one-off characters from throughout the story are left trying to escape a burning hotel while blindfolded (let's just say kangaroo court and move on), including Mr. Poe, Justice Strauss, and both Jerome and Esme Squalor. Another group of characters including the Quagmire triplets and the hook-handed man is either devoured or rescued by the question-mark-shaped entity, and the island's inhabitants are left sailing away with only the possibility of a single apple to save them from the Medusoid Mycelium's poison spores. Even the Baudelaires themselves and Kit's newborn daughter only spend a year in safety on the island before resuming their journey, pursued by the question-mark-shaped entity, which leaves their fate ambiguous as well.

Kill It with Fire: In the Village of Fowl Devotees, burning at the stake is the designated punishment for breaking any of the towns numerous rules (which includes the biggies like murder, but alsotrivial and ridiculous offenses like using mechanical devices, reading certain books, and talking out of turn in town meetings).

This is because the town was founded by a bunch of people who were really interested in/worshiped crows that migrated in a strange way, and so their first two rules were "no hurting the crows" and "anyone who breaks rules gets burned at the stake". At some point they presumably started adding other rules. In any case, this doesn't really seem to be enforced for the minor offenses (as in the case of the sundae with the wrong number of nuts).

Kissing Discretion Shot: A very rare literary version. In The Slippery Slope, it's extremely obvious that there is some chemistry between Violet and Quigley, but the moment the two get alone and one starts with the Longing Looks, Snicket goes off on one of his signature spiels about how since the series started Violet has had little to no privacy, and that he will take this chance to give them a little.

Knight of Cerebus: The man with a beard but no hair and the woman with hair but no beard.

Violet realizes that their climb to the ascending hot air balloon in The Vile Village is dangerous and her siblings back to the ground so they won't get hurt, even though the Quagmires are on the balloon and it is designed never to return to ground.

The theme of The End is that all stories are interconnected, and that the only way to fully understand one of them is to understand all of them.

Lethally Stupid: Any adult who isn't outright abusive to the Baudelaires will instead cause them trouble by being completely useless, or making them doing something way too dangerous for children. Poe is the best example, as he keeps bringing them to more crazy guardians sometimes even worse than the former.

Literary Agent Hypothesis: Lemony Snicket insists that this is a true story that he has extensively researched in an attempt to make the story of the orphans available to the general public.

The Long List: The Snow Scouts Alphabet Pledge in the tenth book, along with lists of food, disguise items, and books seen elsewhere. Also, the long list of (close to 20,000!) rules they had to follow at the Village of Fowl Devotees.

Esme Squallor's personal library full of books cataloging what was in and out in various months, years, etc.

Losing a Shoe in the Struggle: The first thing the Baudelaires see of Kit Snicket in the 13th book is her bare foot sticking out of the raft she built. According to her, it's because a heavy machine was dropped on her foot and she took her shoe off to ease the pain.

Lost Aesop: Parodied. The series starts off meandering fairly aimlessly through satires of various unfortunate literary settings, with Book the Third Lampshade Hanging its lack of a meaningful Aesop, but the later books begin to diverge wildly with mixed messages about what is justifiable in conflict; Book the Tenth resolves this, then Book the Twelfth forgets it was resolved, and Book the Thirteenth (and Last) concerns the impossibility of finding answers to the big questions in life, while ignoring most of the big questions in the series.

MacGyvering: As a mechanical genius, Violet does this at least once per book. And Klaus gets his turn in The Miserable Mill.

Making a Spectacle of Yourself: Count Olaf disguises himself with some shades at one point. His girlfriend Esmé combines shades with binoculars at another.

Malicious Slander: The Daily Punctilio accuses the orphans of murdering Count Olaf and most everyone believes it even though it doesn't even get the names of any of the people involved correct. Fernald uses this to profess his innocence when his name is mentioned as well, though he does admit that he saw the fires burn.

Manchurian Agent: A secret command word does this to Klaus. And another word undoes the effects.

Metafictional Device: The books are published in the world the orphans live in, though of course not until after all of the adventures had transpired.

Men Don't Cry: Averted Trope. Lemony Snicket repeatedly informs the reader of how much he weeps when writing about the woeful journey of the Baudelaires.

Milkman Conspiracy: this series isn't keen on giving clear answers, but VFD seems to be nothing more than the Volunteer Fire Department.

Mind Screw: The 11th and 13th books featured an incarnation of Mystery and Death, shaped like an enormous question mark, that stalked the seas, its motives unfathomable; the existence and activities of V.F.D. get very close to this in the 12th book, too.

Mistaken Identity: Jacques Snicket for Count Olaf, given they are a lot of physical similarities. Before the Baudelaires can prove his innocence, Olaf murders Jacques and frames the siblings for the act.

Mockstery Tale: Basically the gist of the series. The protagonists are attempting to uncover a number of mysteries related to their parents' death and a mysterious organization V. F. D. which they were members of; the reader is expecting that the ending books will provide the answers. However, the final book called The End has an entirely different focus; eventually, the whole series turns out to be more of a coming-of-age story than mystery fiction, and one of the author's points is that the world is full of unanswered questions.

Mysterious Past: Nearly every character has a mysterious past, and none are ever fully revealed. For example, Esme reveals that Beatrice stole the sugar bowl, but Lemony later states that he was involved too. Just HOW he was involved, we do not know.

Never Trust a Trailer: An official website that revealed the only details about the highly secretive twelfth book made numerous updates implying an elevator-centric plotline which never actually materialised, going so far as to reveal a chapter picture which actually referred to a single inconsequential offhand sentence; Snicket's On the Next mislead by giving away random details as though they were equally important, and later obscure themselves to become even more incomprehensible; one promised a prop in the following book that never actually appeared.

Nice Hat: The Council of Elders in the seventh book wear hats shaped like crows.

Klaus revealing to Olaf in Book the First that he's figured out the And Now You Must Marry Me plot leads to Olaf revealing I Have Your Wife with Sunny, and the henchmen suspecting the Baudelaires of trying to rescue her. Also, Klaus bragging to Stephano (actually Count Olaf) about their plans to leave him behind while going to Peru leads to Olaf murdering Monty and planning to impersonate him. By the end of the series Klaus grows out of this, not revealing his intentions to Olaf at all.

Violet having a Not Now, Kiddo moment when the Quagmire siblings try to tell them where they'll be hidden in the auction.

Nice Job Fixing It, Villain!: Olaf framing the Baudelaires for murdering "Count Omar" (actually Jacques who was mistaken for Olaf) means that they're on the lam for the rest of the series, unwilling to go to Mr. Poe to Clear My Name, and even less likely to get access to their fortune as fugitives, making him less likely to get it by proxy. It takes him a long, long time to realize this.

No Ending: While the trials of the Baudelaires are concluded in the last book, we don't know what happens next, nor many of the mysteries that were established.

Nominal Importance: Count Olaf's assistants are known only as "the hook-handed man," "the bald man with a long nose," "the white-faced women," and "the person who looks like neither a man nor a woman."

Later, named characters do join the troupe, and the hook-handed man's name turns out to be "Fernald".

Noodle Incident: It's implied that a lot of the backstory is too tragic to even mention, and Snicket himself alludes to downright absurd situations such as being trapped in a flooded Italian restaurant, which may or may not be hypothetical)

Open any of the books, turn to a page, read one of Snicket's monologues. Guaranteed you'll find at at least one.

Not So Different: While living as fugitives from the eighth book onward, the Baudelaires are forced in enact several questionable deeds, from deceiving people with disguises, attempting to trap Esme to use as hostage, burning down a hotel, and even accidentally killing someone. Initially, they believe they are justified in doing these on the grounds that they are attempts to save themselves, but slowly start to realize that most of Olaf's wicked deeds are to save himself as well, making them wonder if they're any better than him.

Numerological Motif: Canon, text, paratexts ... the number thirteen is everywhere. It was once the number of search results for this page on the wiki.

The main series consists of thirteen books, each with thirteen chapters. The thirteenth book has a "hidden" fourteenth chapter which serves as an epilogue, bringing the main series total to one hundred seventy chapters rather than one hundred sixty-nine.

Snicket getting the damn story told in the first place, while presumed dead and following the Baudelaires.

Fiona and Fernald escaping from Count Olaf between the eleventh and twelfth book. It's one of the few times Olaf expresses dismay to the orphans without his usual Smug Snake nature.

The Baudelaires and Beatrice surviving to The Beatrice Letters, and being able to make a new life for themselves.

Quigley Quagmire survived the fire that killed his parents. While everyone thought he was dead. He also sends Violet a coded message after getting separated from her and the Baudelaires, without breaking a sweat.

Oh, and X Dies: In The Reptile Room, Lemony tells us Uncle Monty will die...

Only Sane Man: Frequently the Baudelaires are this, as are other well-read volunteers. During an interview, Liam Aiken (who played Klaus in The Film of the Book) himself described the siblings as "the only sane people."

Only Smart People May Pass: A Vernacularly Fastened Door has three questions which must be answered, usually involving scientific or literary subjects. Oh, and you have to find out what the questions are by yourself.

And spelling counts.

On the Next: Lemony's letters to his Kind Editor, which include the title of the next book and a few random details from it. As the series goes on, these letters become increasingly obscured, such as by tearing and water-stains, and so the information is increasingly elusive. In the case of the eleventh book, only half the title was known; the twelfth book's title was completely lost; the letter about the thirteenth book was just a single sentence written on a napkin — with the title included, but nobody realized at the time as it deviated from the usual title pattern.

Orphan's Ordeal: The entire point of the series. The Quagmire triplets have their own set too, though a good deal of it is offscreen.

Our Product Sucks: Again, the books frequently attempt to convince you that you'd be better off reading something else. Several books have the narration cut off in one of the last chapters just to inform you that while the story looks like it's moving in a happy direction, everything will fall apart and be miserable again before the book is over.

Painting the Medium: In The Ersatz Elevator, the three children are thrown down an elevator shaft, and rather than try to describe it, Lemony just prints two pages solid black.

In the eighth, ninth, and twelfth books, the Baudelaires get disguises of their own. Their disguises in the eighth book are particularly ridiculous: thirteen year old Klaus and baby Sunny just don face masks and ill-fitting doctor uniforms and are mistaken as the pale-faced women, by the women's own cohorts! In the ninth book, their disguises are a bit less paper thin, but Count Olaf still probably should have recognized them since he's been following them so long (though he does mention that they look familiar).

Subverted with Olaf's henchmen. When one of them is in disguise, the Baudelaires "meet" them before Olaf, and never recognize them.

Parental Substitute: Dr. Montgomery is a good substitute. In The Penultimate Peril, volunteers Kit Snicket and Dewey Denouement answer some of the Baudelaires' questions, and the latter offers to become their guardian. All three of them die.

Justice Strauss and Jerome Squalor both try to play this role towards the children in books 1 and 6, respectively. But each one fails to protect them from Olaf's schemes, and neither one is able to stay with the children for various reasons.

Perky Goth: Violet's character design changes from a rather innocent 50's girl style, to a lolita-style goth.

Persona Non Grata: Snicket mentions that he is banned from a certain town, not so far from where you live.

Pyrrhic Villainy: Count Olaf's constant attempts to secure the Baudelaire fortune devolve into this, especially when he frames the Baudelaires for murder and makes them unwanted fugitives, so that even if they wanted to fight for their money and innocence with Mr. Poe's "help", they would find it hard to do so. By that point the Baudelaires don't care anymore about the money, or about trusting in adults, in part thanks to Olaf's schemes, and they care less about being the better person as long as no one is hurt. Badly. They manipulate him into setting the last safe place on fire and escaping to the sea, far from civilization, where even if he has them he doesn't have the fortune. He seems to realize this in Book the Thirteenth when he and the Baudelaires end up on a deserted island, far from civilization, and only half-heartedly tries to disguise himself as Kit Snicket.

Plot-Based Photograph Obfuscation: Lemony Snicket never shows his face in photographs, but there are several possible explanations for why this is, and most such photographs are only seen by the audience in his author bio rather than by the characters. The nearest thing we get to an actual image of him is the elusive taxi driver, which is rumoured, and hinted in the series, to actually be him.

Plot Tailored to the Party: In every book the children are in situations that require inventing skills, research skills, and sharp teeth (or cooking, from the 10th book on); also true to some degree of the Quagmire triplets, although Duncan's journalism interest is rarely useful.

This has actually gotten some controversy over being in a children's book series. Word of God says this was meant to have him Kick the Dog.

A Spanish translation renders that line as "Metanse al jodido jeep!" which translates to "Get in the fucking jeep!"

What probably pushed this over the edge was Lemony Snickett himself audaciously lampshading it by apologizing to readers specifically for having Olaf shout for the kids to "get in the damn jeep".

Properly Paranoid: The Baudelaires, about Count Olaf's many attempts to infiltrate their lives and snatch them for their fortune; V.F.D., a secret organisation which has split into two opposing sides, one noble and one murderous; and Aunt Josephine in The Film of the Book, for the scene where all her crazy fears come true (although she's not around to see it). It makes us realise that maybe, just maybe, she's not as crazy as she seems. Then she sells the orphans out to Count Olaf to save her life, and we realise she is truly crazy to think he'll spare someone who could, albiet unlikely, speak out against him and reveal that Captain Sham is actually Count Olaf.

Public Execution: Fortunately averted in The Vile Village, but more or less straight in The Carnivorous Carnival.

Pyro Maniac: Count Olaf really likes to burn houses down and enjoys it even more if there is someone inside

He also doesn't mind the occasional hospital full of children.

Real Fake Wedding: Count Olaf casts his ward Violet as the bride in his play in a bid to gain full control over her inheritance. Olaf definitely plays this trope straight and casts a real officiant in the play, who is very distressed to learn she had been tricked.

Recursive Canon: Apparently Snicket's books are published within the world of the Series, but it's not clear if they're different versions.

Red Herring: A literal one shows up (but is anything but), and a patient in the Heimlich Hospital has a name that is an anagram of red herring.

Reference Overdosed: If you made a list of every time Snicket makes a Shout-Out to literature and history in one of the later books (especially through Sunny's dialogue), it would be almost as long as the book itself.

Refuge in Audacity: As the series is primarily rooted in absurdist fiction, there's not a book that is without such a moment.

Retcon: So heavy that a number of companion books had to be written to fully explain them; these were themselves retconned. Handler originally thought the series would only last a few books, not the intended 13, and hence the first four books were essentially unconnected; V.F.D. was created as an ongoing plotline when it became clear the series could run 13 books, and details from the first four books were retconned to be part of the V.F.D. backstory to bring the entire series together.

Retro Universe: A part of the Schizo Tech of the setting. Although, it should be noted that the text never makes explicit references to the Baudelaire children wearing Victorian clothing — even though they are typically illustrated as wearing such.

Rule of Symbolism : The Incredible Deadly Viper offering the Baudelaires an apple to cure the medusoid mycelium in The End.

Sadist Teacher: Vice Principal Nero, a Small Name, Big Ego type who mercilessly butchers the violin every night but considers himself to be a genius. He forces the students of Prufrock Preparatory School to attend six hour concerts, and punishment for not showing up is having to buy him a large bag of candy and watch him eat it. He also loves mimicking the Baudelaire siblings every chance he gets, forces them to leave in a horrible little shack infested with crabs and fungus, and makes Sunny his secretary.

Olaf as Coach Genghis, who purposefully makes the Baudelaires run laps all night in order for them to do poorly in class. Nero praises him as "the greatest gym teacher in the world" after Olaf praises his musical "genius".

Subverted with Mr. Remora and Mrs. Bass, who are not evil so much as they are very, very bad teachers. Remora's class consists of him endlessly telling short, boring stories while eating bananas, and Bass is obsessed with measuring things. When they are forced to give the Baudelaires "special exams" for sleeping in class (which they studied for thanks to notes collected by Duncan and Isadora Quagmire), by the third question they realize Violet and Klaus are actually very smart students, and only continue the exam because of Nero. They ask Nero if they can give an extra hard exam to Carmelita Spats instead because she's so awful, and when Nero decides he's going to expel the Baudelaires anyway for skipping gym, Remora and Bass state it's not cheating if you're trying to make sure athletics don't affect your schoolwork. They aren't in a position to do anything since Nero is their boss, so they prove to be just as useless as the rest of the adults in the series.

Sarcastic Confession: In a column included in the Harper Collins paperback edition of the series, Lemony Snicket says that the best way to keep a secret is to tell it to everyone, but pretend you are lying.

Scarpia Ultimatum: Olaf threatens to drop Sunny from a tower if Violet doesn't go through with his wedding scheme.

The Baudelaires trying to rescue and reunite with Duncan and Isadora. While they manage to get the latter two to safety, they never reunite with the duo. Though their brother Quigley reunites with them

Justice Strauss trying to help the Baudelaire siblings after being forced to let them go in the first book. She never loses faith in the justice system despite two of her co-judges letting Count Olaf kidnap her, and refuses to come with the siblings when they leave with Count Olaf from the hotel roof. Sunny has to bite Strauss to make her let go of the siblings' escape boat, and says sadly, "Goodbye".

Also in Book the Twelfth, Jerome Squalor trying to make up for his earlier cowardice by writing a book about Count Olaf's crimes. The book ends up being used to decode a secret lock and to start a fire in the hotel.

On the villainous side, Olaf stealing the Baudelaires' fortune in due part to Pyrrhic Villainy. This leads to him having Villainous B.S.O.D.after getting shot by his own harpoon gun.

Shaming the Mob: Done by Olaf of all people to the audience of the play in the film.

Shout-Out: Numerous allusions to literature, history, and mythology, among other things; many are listed here.

Why will no-one call me Ish?

Show Within a Show: The theme song from The Littlest Elf is heard on two characters' car stereos, and Olaf has a bobblehead of the character in his car, implying it's a film within the world of the story. This ties in perfectly with the conceit that Snicket's intended audience is also part of that world, when he recommends ditching out and seeing that movie instead.

Sigil Spam: Eyes are a frequent sight throughout the series, and one of the identifiers of volunteers.

Significant Anagram: Count Olaf's henchmen use anagrams of "Count Olaf" as pseudonyms. In the eighth book, Violet is given an anagrammed name on a hospital patient list. One of the anagrams in the list, when unravelled, reads "Beatrice Baudelaire". Whether this was done deliberately, to state that she IS actually alive at least until the hospital burned down, or not, is unknown. It may just be a red herring.

Interestingly, the names on Book 8's patient list are themselves anagrams of an Easter Egg status. Most of them are names associated with the book's production - "Linda Rhaldeen" becomes "Daniel Handler," the author, while "Eriq Bluthetts" becomse "Brett Helquist," the illustrator. There is only one exception: "Ned H. Rirger" is, in fact, an anagram of the phrase "redherring."

Sliding Scale of Continuity: The series is much the same as Harry Potter, with the first four books or so being mostly independent, starting off with the Baudelaires being adopted by a new guardian and carefully explaining who the characters are to potential new readers, but later on the continuity creeps and the reader starts to need to have read the previous books to make sense of all this stuff about VFD and Beatrice and so on.

Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: Largely toward the "cynical" end of the scale; many characters seem like they would prefer to be idealistic but have had the optimism crushed out of them, and those who are consistently optimistic come across as foolish.

Spoof Aesop: Snicket's narration is peppered with comments like "The moral of World War I is 'Never assassinate Archduke Ferdinand'"; the Spin-OffHorseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid compiles a lot of these, some from the main series and some entirely new.

Spy Speak: V.F.D., being a secret organisation, naturally uses copious quantities of this, so much so that there have been disputes among readers over whether certain phrases are in code or not.

"The world is quiet here."

"I didn't realize this was a sad occasion."

"If there's nothing out there, what was that noise?"

Stealth Pun: The Baudelaire children's first guardian after Olaf is called Uncle Monty, And he owns Pythons. You figure it out.

Stopped Reading Too Soon: Parodied twice. Once, in-universe, a vital note is hidden behind chapters and chapters about somebody picking a snack. On another occasion, the author actually buries us in boring information before writing a note to his sister.

Strictly Formula: Books 2-6 followed this basic formula: The Baudelaires are sent to live in a new home, which is usually not super pleasant but does have some redeeming qualities. But then Count Olaf and one of his associates arrive in a Paper-Thin Disguise, trying to get the children into his care and this get their money. The children always immediately see through Olaf's disguise (but strangely never the associate's), but are never believed by anyone they tell. The children manage to expose Olaf's disguise at the very last second before his plan works, but then he and his associate get away, and the children have to go to a new home for one reason or another. Book seven followed the formula at first, but broke it when he framed the children for killing "Count Olaf" (actually a member of V.F.D. who shared some characteristics with Olaf) to get two executed and use one to blackmail Mr Poe to get the fortune. His plan fails and he gets away, but the children are still accused. The rest of the series focuses on the children trying to find out about V.F.D., Count Olaf's past, and the secrets which their parents knew all along, but never told them.

Synchronized Swarming: The swarm of "snow gnats"can take on forms like hoops and arrows when attacking people.

Take a Third Option: A non positive example. What is Nero's solution for where to put Sunny the baby since Prufock Preparatory has no preschool class? Have her work for him as his non-paid secretary, answering the phone, stappling. etc.

Take That!: Lemony Snicket takes some not-so-subtle jabs at various political figures via Sunny's "baby talk": There's "busheney" for "You're an evil man" in The Slippery Slope and "scalia" in The Penultimate Peril, both of which have somewhat unkind translations).

Then there's his association of poet Edgar Guest with the villains in The Grim Grotto, even stating outright that it's because his poetry sucked in a Tastes Like Diabetes way. Kind of jarring in a series so focused on Black and Gray Morality.

Theme Naming: The teachers at Prufrock Preparatory School are named after fish, and later we discover some families of siblings with alphabetically sequential names.

Themed Aliases: Count Olaf and his henchman often use aliases that are anagrams of Count Olaf, such as Al Funcoot or O. Lucafont. The Baudelaires finally pick up on this in the eighth book.

There Are No Therapists: So many children are orphaned in this series, but instead of counseling they get sent to abusive foster homes — or worse.

13 Is Unlucky: Thirteen books in the series. Each book except the thirteenth has thirteen chapters. The series has other examples as well.

This Is Gonna Suck: Every single book, although especially the first, has Snicket begging the reader not to continue because the story is simply that depressing.

Totem Pole Trench: An interesting variant: Violet and Klaus put on the same oversized outfit to disguise themselves as a two-headed person.

Torches and Pitchforks: Well, torches anyway. In The Vile Village, the townspeople go after the Beaudelaires this way when the children are accused of murder.

Totally Radical: In-universe, Count Olaf's disguise as Detective Dupin in Book 7 comes off this way. Mainly he overuses the word "cool" (always accompanied by a finger snap) and wears an over-the-top cool outfit with sequined pants and sunglasses.

Translation: "Yes": Judging by the translations in-text, almost everything Sunny says carries a lot of meaning per sound. Complete sentences aren't more than two syllables long until she starts learning a little English in the later books, and she seems to get a lot more across with her babytalk.

Unreliable Narrator: In one of her letters, Beatrice claims that the stories the Baudelaires told her of their troubles in some cases differ wildly from Lemony's accounts.

The Un-Reveal: When Sir is in a sauna, he puts down the cigar whose smoke usually covers his face, but he is covered up again by the steam.

In the illustration at the end of the fourth book, we can kind-of see the back of his head, so he may be bald.

Unusual Euphemism: On two occasions, flustered or frightened characters blaspheme the names of divine entities from about five different religions, concluding with "Charles Darwin!" or "Nathaniel Hawthorne!"

Viewers Are Geniuses: See below, but also note that many names (along with the so-called nonsense words that Sunny says) are a Shout-Out to one thing or another.

Viewers Are Morons: In a parody of the way children's books try to be educational, Lemony constantly defines words such as alcove, brummagem, cower, denouement, ersatz etc. Ironically many viewers didn't realize this is supposed to be a joke, even though he uses the most bizarre and snarky definitions, and much of the humor comes from assuming the reader already knows the standard definition of the word.

Visual Pun: In The Ersatz Elevator the Baudelaires come across an auction house where one of the lots is a large statue of a red fish. Of course it's not as important as they initially think, because it's a Red Herring...

We Are Not Going Through That Again: After being framed for murder, and chased for several books, the Baudelaires refuse to accept Mr. Poe's help and go to the authorities to Clear My Name because frankly he hasn't been a help at all and a VFD member sent them a taxi.

Weirdness Magnet: Sort of. The children are more like weirdness iron filings, drawn to bizarre people and places. On the other hand, that might just be because there aren't any normal people in Snicketland.

What Happened to the Mouse?: Phil. Arguably a lot of minor characters who weren't brought back, in the last couple of books when many one-shot characters returned).

In the first book an assistant of Olaf's is mentioned who has warts all over his face. We never hear of him again.

Although the song "Scream and Run Away" associated with "The Bad Beginning" describes all Olaf's accomplices and mentions "one long-nosed bald man with warts". One would believe this confirms that the man with warts and the bald man with the long nose appear to be the same person, just described by a different distinguishing feature, but this cannot be the case when the novel lists the accomplices in such a way that the bald man and the wart-faced man as separate individuals. A later book would mention that Lemony Snicket received "wart removal cream" as a present, so perhaps he is the wart-faced man.

"Where Are They Now?" EpilogueChapter Fourteen; arguably a Subverted Trope because they haven't gone anywhere, although their views have moved on. The Beatrice Letters form part of an epilogue themselves. Even though the scrambled letters reveal that "BEATRICE SANK", the Baudelaires are apparently living out their lives doing what they love. Beatrice (that's the Beatrice born in Book 13) is currently trying to find Lemony Snicket, presumably to ask him what is happening.

Where the Hell Is Springfield?: Every setting, from "the city", to fictional locations with alliterative names, to an island not on any map; we don't even know where half of them are in relation to each other.

If examined closely, the package the children receive at the end of the film is postmarked to Boston. The film is non-canon, and if Boston were the location, it'd be a highly fictionalized version of the city.

Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Aunt Josephine, for nearly everything, including realtors. Why she hid inside a cave that Lemony says is 'Phantasmagorical, a word which here means "every scary word you can think of mashed together with horror' is because before her husband Ike died, she was ever so slightly braver and loved swimming in the leech-filled lake.

In the movie, though, it's revealed that not only was she completely normal before her husband died, but very adventurous as well!

The movie and an offhand line in a later book justify some of her fears.

Apparently one of VFD's safe places was a cave which was seized by a group of treacherous realtors, so perhaps that phobia was justified.

Wig, Dress, Accent: Most characters' disguises involve some combination of these or similar items, and the three stages of V.F.D.'s disguise training— Veiled Facial Disguises, Various Finery Disguises, and Voice Fakery Disguises — resemble this trope.

The Baudelaires, most notably Sunny, who's a baby for most of the series.

Most members of the VFD qualify.

World Gone Mad: Once things were united behind VFD. Then the schism happened and everything went straight to hell.

World of No Grandparents: The Baudelaires don't seem to have any close relatives; at one point Mr. Poe attempts to send them to a nineteenth cousin. Granted, the people they know have a habit of dying "mysteriously," and the ones still living refuse to take in the Baudelaires for fear of meeting the same fate.

Worst News Judgment Ever: "'Heimlich Hospital Almost Forgets Paperwork!' Wait until the readers of The Daily Punctilio see that!" One of many examples courtesy of Geraldine Julienne, star reporter.

Would Hurt a Child: Count Olaf and his henchmen (which is something that Fernald can't deny when Klaus chews him out), as well as Aunt Josephine (abandons them to save her own skin), Sir (puts them in dangerous labor conditions), Dr. Orwell (hypnosis to compel minors to commit murders), Vice Principal Nero (letting a coach run three children ragged from midnight until dawn), Esme Squalor (traps them in elevators and statues), the titular Vile Village (plans to burn them at the stake on flimsy evidence), and Ishmael (will let them die from poisonous mushrooms if it means remaining the leader).

Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Unsurprisingly, few adults meet this standard. Justice Strauss, Uncle Monty, Jerome Squalor, Phil, Mr. Remora and Mrs. Bass, and Captain Widdershins are among the minority in that they treat the Baudelaires kindly, if remaining inept.

Lemony Snicket always seems to arrive at the Baudelaires' many homes just after they have left, never encountering them in person.

In The Austere Academy the Baudelaire siblings dash just in time to see Olaf's henchmen carry off Duncan and Isadora for their fortune. This happens again in The Ersatz Elevator with Duncan and Isadora carted away in a statue shaped like an actual red herring.

Community

Tropes HQ

TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy